sciam.com — Millions of tiny microbes infest the water carrying the detritus of human life and society. Some of them steadily break down the organic material in waste streams and produce electrons in the process.New research shows how such biological power plants can be stacked to create usable current.
May 10, 2006 View in Crawl 4
muttMay 10, 2006
Once you get used to the smell of rendered human waste, you'll never know how you lived without it.mmm, human waste..
djerridMay 10, 2006
"Aw, crap! Power's out again. Junior git on the can and don't come out 'til the lights come back on!"
merrebornMay 10, 2006
Americans were extracting energy from feces over 150 years ago. They used to gather up buffalo 'chips', and burn 'em.I'd be impressed if this scheme was more efficient than just burning waste products (which can then be used to heat a steam-based generator).I guess it probably releases less junk into the atmosphere.
rolandogMay 11, 2006
I just finished writing with some friends a research paper for my town's wastewater treatment plant. The theme is on the reuse of wastewater sludge as a fuel, and the reuse of wastewater sludge ash as an additive or filler.I'm not allowed to talk about the details because of a NDA... but I'm glad to see a lot of cities worldwide are heading towards a poop-powered society.An interesting article I found a few months ago at biosolids.org: < <a class="user" href="http://biosolids.org/news_weekly.asp?id=1889">http://biosolids.org/news_weekly.asp?id=1889</a> >, (last article, at the bottom).. talks about Tokyo's new approach to managing their sludge generation... 3,500 daily tons!
actorboyMay 11, 2006
Oh, great, not another story from the Microbes fanbois. Oh, wait, microbes.
mrphelpsMay 11, 2006
Whow the most impressive fact is that the fuel cell actually *evolved* and became 3 times more efficient over the course of 200 days ... This opens a whole new perspective ;p